


Comrades in Arms

by CDRomelle



Series: We're All We Have (Sylvixgrid) [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Throuple, and now i'm writing fic about it, listen if you just read their supports with each other, this ship snuck up on me, very minor spoilers for blue lions path, you'll realize i had no choice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-09-19
Packaged: 2020-11-02 09:14:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20695949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CDRomelle/pseuds/CDRomelle
Summary: “‘Dearest daughter… hope you are well… still the matter of your marriage to attend… perhaps one of the young heirs of Gautier or Fraldarius…’ Holy shit, Ingrid, are you going to marry into House Gautier or House Fraldarius?”“I hear the Gautier heir is a foolish ass,” says Felix.“Well, I hear the Fraldarius heir is a frigid bitch.”Felix has Sylvain in a headlock before he can blink. “Take it back.”“Ow, ow, ow—”“Oh, get off me, you idiots!” Ingrid shoves Felix off the bed; Felix falls to the wooden floor with a loud thump, dragging Sylvain along with him.Ingrid peers over the bedside at them. “Don’t you get it? This is good news!”Felix releases Sylvain and they both sit up. Why do they suddenly look wary? Too late to back down now. Ingrid charges on:





	Comrades in Arms

**Author's Note:**

> Listen... I'm begging you... just read these three's supports with each other in-game. I mean even Felix's use of "we" in his and Sylvain's A+ support...

If Ingrid is honest with herself, she expected the letter. 

She knows who it’s from even before seeing the seal. After all, it’s been a month since the war’s end, a month since she wrote home to House Galatea to inform her family that she would be staying at Garreg Mach during the peace talks. Plenty of time for a return letter. As for what it’s about—there could only be one answer. 

But expectation does nothing to stop the pang of fear when she sees it, small and tidy, lying on her desk. 

A true knight faces every fight with her chin held high, without hesitation or concern for herself. So Ingrid takes a deep breath, and breaks the letter’s seal. 

As she reads, her eyebrows go up. 

She wasn’t expecting… _ that. _

Her bedroom door bangs open at that moment, and Sylvain and Felix troop in.

“Ingrid!” Sylvain lowers his head and bowls into her like a wrestler, lifting Ingrid onto his shoulder. He spins once, then throws her and himself onto her bed, trying to position himself on top, but Ingrid grabs his neck as they fall and they land sideways, with her elbow across his chest. 

“Ow,” says Sylvain with an exaggerated wince. “Don’t be so rough with me.” 

“Oh, please.” 

“Your technique needs work, as usual,” says Felix. He’s standing at the side of the bed, his arms crossed, glowering down at them. 

“Then why don’t you come show me how it’s done?” Sylvain grins.

“Why should I? It’s a useless move when it comes to real combat.”

“Oh, shut up and get down here,” Ingrid says, holding out the arm that isn’t pinning Sylvain down. 

Felix turns up his nose, pretends he’s considering it. Then with a very put-upon air he sits down on the edge of the bed so Ingrid and Sylvain can pull him down onto both of them. 

“Oof,” Sylvain grunts, shaking his head to get Ingrid and Felix’s hair out of his mouth. “Someone’s been enjoying the victory feasts a bit too much.” 

“Or maybe someone’s gone soft,” Ingrid says. 

“What’s that?” says Felix. 

“I said, maybe someone’s—”

Felix points at her hand. “You have a letter.”

Sylvain cranes his head. “Ooh, Ingrid’s got mail! Is it from another lover?”

“It’s from my father,” Ingrid says, exasperated. 

“Ew!” says Sylvain. “Look, Ingrid, throuples are one thing, but incest—”

“It’s not a love letter, you ass! My father is still trying to marry me off—oof!”

Sylvain and Felix had exchanged a glance, then as one rolled around so Ingrid was the one on the bottom and the two of them lay on either of her arms, pinning them down so Sylvain can tear the letter from her hands. 

“‘Dearest daughter… hope you are well… still the matter of your marriage to attend… perhaps one of the young heirs of Gautier or Fraldarius…’ Holy shit, Ingrid, are you going to marry into House Gautier or House Fraldarius?”

“I hear the Gautier heir is a foolish ass,” says Felix. 

“Well, I hear the Fraldarius heir is a frigid bitch.” 

Felix has Sylvain in a headlock before he can blink. “Take it back.” 

“Ow, ow, ow—”

“Oh, get off me, you idiots!” Ingrid shoves Felix off the bed; Felix falls to the wooden floor with a loud thump, dragging Sylvain along with him. 

Ingrid peers over the bedside at them. “Don’t you get it? This is good news!”

Felix releases Sylvain and they both sit up. Why do they suddenly look wary? Too late to back down now. Ingrid charges on:

“This is the best possible situation we could have hoped for, really.” 

“Wait, wait, wait…” Sylvain holds up his hands. “Are we doing this right now?”

“Well, why not?”

“I just…” He ruffles his hair. A nervous gesture. “I never thought about it, I guess.” 

The battle is not going as she anticipated. But she can’t retreat. Not yet at least. 

“You two may not have thought of this, but I have. If I married someone else, I… I would have to break it off with both of you.”

“What?” says Sylvain. “Why?”

“I would be breaking my oath to my husband. A true knight never goes back on her word.” 

“So…” Sylvain now has both hands in his own hair. She’s never seen him this worried. What is going on? “So, if you married one of us—”

“Gautier has more money,” says Felix, abruptly. “Money your family needs” 

“Fraldarius is closer to Galatea territory, though,” says Sylvain. “It’ll be easier to merge lands, and visit your parents.”

“Gautier isn’t much farther,” Felix snorts. 

“And anyway, are you sure Gautier is wealthier? We spend a lot on the Sreng front.”

“Doesn’t Fhirdiad give you money for that?”

“Do I look like I know that?”

“Enough!” says Ingrid. “If you don’t want to be with me, you should just come out with it instead of lying like cowards.” 

And she storms out of the room, slamming the door behind her. 

* * *

Usually a pegasus ride clears her head like nothing else. But today the cold winds go bone-deep, right through her furs and mail. She’s shivering within minutes. 

It only makes her angrier. Why is she suddenly so weak that a light breeze makes her hands shake? Why is everything always so hard?

An unknightly thought. She crushes it like an enemy beneath a hoof. 

Perhaps it really was all just fooling around for them. Sylvain has always been a skirt-chaser, and Felix—had she just convinced herself that his off-putting prickliness was just a mask? 

_ Go find a husband _, he’d once told her. The unfairness of it took her breath away. 

But that was before Garreg Mach fell, before the four long years the three of them had spent apart, until the day Felix showed up on Castle Galatea’s doorstep, Sylvain in tow. 

Ingrid winds her fingers into her pegasus’s mane. She can still see them standing at the castle gate: Felix even grimmer than usual, Sylvain slouched against the doorway. She felt like a character in one of her chivalric novels—that is, until Sylvain started talking. 

"Woah! Ingrid! Long time no, uh…" His face was the color of his hair. "You look older. I mean better! Like, more mature."

"Are we really still doing this?" Ingrid said. 

"Whatever, your fault for getting a cute new haircut, what am I supposed to do—"

"You were like this at the end of school, too. Did you get a brain injury in the Holy Tomb?"

“Enough!" Felix cut in. "The boar is alive. We’re going to hunt him. Are you in?”

She said yes even before she’d confirmed with Sylvain that “hunt him” didn’t mean “kill Dimitri.” Necessarily. 

Those first few weeks, they had little to say to each other. It wasn’t just the trials of a mercenary life on the road, the constant skirmishes with bandits, or the fruitless search for any sign of Dimitri; it had been four years since Ingrid, Sylvain and Felix had seen each other. Who knew how war with the Empire had changed them. Did they have anything to say to each other any more? Did they really want to find out? 

The silence finally broke over, of all things, a fistfight. It started as an argument between Felix and Sylvain—a nothing argument, if she remembers correctly, they were hungry and tired and arguing about nothing—and turned into a shoving match, which turned into a brawl, and then Felix punched Sylvain so hard he crashed right into Ingrid, who had been sitting by the fire mending a tear in her sleeve. 

She jumped to her feet and rammed her shoulder into Felix’s stomach, knocking them both to the ground, and then Sylvain tried to pull her off, inexplicably coming to Felix’s rescue, and then they were roughhousing like boys, like children, panted shouts, grinning accusations, dust and sweat and gentle bruises. It ended with Sylvain and Felix both sitting on her to pin her, and Ingrid kicking her legs but laughing too hard to escape, until--

“Oof!” Sylvain jolted as her ankle connected with his side. He rolled off her, his hand pressed to his ribs. 

Felix was up in a flash. “What is it?”

“Nothing.” Sylvain tried to adopt a relaxed pose, reclined on the ground and propped up by his elbows, but he couldn’t hide a wince that flashed across his face. 

“Liar,” Felix said. 

“It’s just a scratch,” said Sylvain, “It’s fine.” 

“Why didn’t you tell us?”

“We’re out of vulneraries, Felix, just lay off it, all right?” 

“You gathered firewood alone! If you’d been attacked--.” 

“Are we really going to do this every time I get the tiniest scratch?”

“No,” said Felix. He turned away. “We’re not. Like I said. You can die whenever you please.” 

“Well it can’t happen soon enough.”

Felix rounded on Sylvain, murder in his eyes--

“Stop it!” Ingrid interposed herself between the two of them. “This is ridiculous. Both of you, apologize.”

“I have nothing to apologize for,” said Felix. 

“Apologize. Now.” 

Sylvain sighed. “I’m sorry, Felix.” 

“And you?” said Ingrid. 

“I’m sorry,” Felix growled. 

“All right. Now say what you both were too cowardly to say all along.” 

“Felix, your hair looks terrible.” 

“Not what I meant!” Ingrid said, over Felix’s snarl. “And you know it. Sylvain, tell Felix you were trying to keep your wound from us because you love us. And Felix, tell Sylvain you were worried about him because you love him.” 

Felix looked as shocked as if she’d slapped him. A faint color rose to his pale cheeks. 

Sylvain ruffled his hair. “Ahh, but you just said it so well? Why do we have to say it again?”

“Because you need to say it.” 

“Fine. ‘What Ingrid said.’ There.”

“Sylvain--”

“What Ingrid said,” Felix repeated. 

“Thanks, Felix! See, we said it.” 

“Ugh.” Ingrid tried to hide her smile. Losing battle. “You two.” 

After that, it was easier, at least for a little while. Then they picked up Dimitri’s trail. 

The first time Ingrid saw a crushed human skull, she dropped to her knees and threw up in the dirt. That night, around their sputtering campfire, Felix stood watch from dusk to dawn so Sylvain could hold her hand while she tossed and turned. 

They didn’t talk about it the next day. They didn’t talk about much of anything; Felix was even grouchier than usual from his sleepless night. Sylvain threw himself into trying to keep the mood light, which for him meant relentless flirting. What had annoyed her for years, Ingrid suddenly found… comforting. Even funny. At least some things never change. She didn’t believe him when he talked about her “beautiful hair” or her “mighty thighs” of course, but she still found herself returning the favor, because saying “You’re pretty good-looking yourself, for a carrot with bedhead,” was better than letting her mind wander back to the skull and the blood. Even Felix didn’t tell them to shut up, which meant he didn’t mind it, which meant he liked it, no matter how much he might be glowering.

And if she caught Sylvain looking at her with an odd expression—and had his eyes always been so doelike? — she knew better than to think something of it. After all, that night after literally forcing Felix onto his bedroll so Sylvain could take the first watch uncontested, hadn’t he looked at Felix the same way, when he thought neither of them were watching? 

They spent months saving each other’s lives, bandaging each other’s wounds, watching each other eat and sleep and piss against trees. The time Sylvain had been unhorsed and surrounded and she’d swooped down to pull him one-handed over her pegasus’s saddle to get him to safety. The time Sylvain fumbled through a heal spell to stop Felix bleeding out from a dagger to the gut. The time Felix nearly killed them all with poisoned berries and they spent three days in a cave sweating out the fever. 

Winter marched into Faerghus like a second invasion, trampling fields under its boot, leaving ashlike snow in its wake. They could no longer sleep outside, even in their furs. Would Dimitri die of cold before they even found him?

“It would serve him right,” said Felix. 

But they increased their pace. They knew they weren’t the only ones on Dimitri’s heels anymore. 

Luckily—a bitter word, a nasty thought—the snow-bleached vales were full of abandoned farmhouses, empty cabins. Bandits’ work. She felt no better than a bandit herself, taking shelter in homes into which she wasn’t invited, sleeping in beds that weren’t hers. 

But they had no choice: the Imperial army, having declared war on the Archbishop herself, seemed to think Winter would be an easy conquest. They were on every road, their black banners fluttering in icy winds, their legions of mages warming the troops with fireballs that arced through the air like a bonfire spitting embers. 

“If they find Dimitri before we do...” said Sylvain as they crouched shivering in an icy thicket, watching a league of Imperials march down a road the three of them could no longer safely travel. 

“I’m almost more worried about Dimitri finding them,” said Ingrid. Sylvain looked at her. His Adam’s apple bobbed below his fur-lined collar as he swallowed. 

Felix set his jaw. “Let’s get out of here.”

* * *

Ingrid’s pegasus whickers. She’s flown so high that paper-thin icy trails crack along her cheeks as she gasps in a ragged breath. 

She’s flown far afield of Garreg Mach--north, all the way over Galatea territory. A responsible knight would return to the stables. 

Instead, Ingrid nudges her pegasus toward the place she’s been unconsciously heading toward all along. A little cabin in southern Fraldarius territory, in the middle of a forest known for its good hunting. 

It’s long past dusk by the time she lands at the cabin. She lands in the dark, tethers her pegasus, and slips inside. 

* * *

When they first found this cabin it was home to several bandits. But Ingrid, Sylvain and Felix knew how to take care of bandits by then. They didn’t even need to discuss the plan. Sylvain, with his heavier armor, would go right up to the front door, catching a few arrows on his shield for his trouble. While the bandits were distracted by Sylvain’s yells, Felix would slip in through the back window and cut them down, and Ingrid, circling above on her pegasus like a vulture, would pick off the ones who tried to flee. 

“You two never save any for me,” Sylvain complained as he helped Felix drag a corpse out of the cabin afterward. 

“Shut up,” snapped Felix. “You sound like the boar.”

“I… I was kidding.” 

“Don’t kid.” 

“All right, yikes.” 

Felix stalked into the cabin. Sylvain watched him go, his mouth open. “Should I, uh…” 

“Let him have his tantrum,” Ingrid said wearily. “Help me with this, the ground is frozen solid.” She tossed him a shovel she’d found in the cabin. 

Sylvain caught it, but didn’t dig. “Is it just me, or is he getting worse?”

“He’s just cold and hungry. We all are.” 

He shook his head. “It’s not that. Fuck, you’re almost as bad as he is sometimes.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means take this, I’m gonna try something.” He tossed the shovel back to her and raised his hands. 

She leaned on the shovel for half an hour, trying to ignore the corpses stacked beside her, as Sylvain guessed his way through a few fire spells and eventually managed to loosen the earth enough for her to dig a grave with ease.

When they were done, her arms were burning and her skin beneath her layers was clammy and cold with sweat. They tied their horses and pegasus in the small stable, little bigger than a shed but full of mouldy blankets and even mouldier hay, then went into the cabin. 

Felix had started a fire in the hearth, but it was already just glowing embers. Ingrid picked up a poker to tend it, and Felix stopped her. 

“Don't stoke it. We can’t afford the smoke.” 

“Well then how the hell are we supposed to not die of cold?” Sylvain said, spreading his arms. 

Felix shrugged at the pile of furs on the single bed in the small cabin. “We’ll have to share body heat,” he said, utterly impassive. 

Sylvain stared at him. The way his cheeks were still red from the cold, it made it seem like he was blushing. Ingrid almost laughed. 

Even without a fire, it was still a better sleeping spot than they’d had in a while. The bandits had stockpiled beef jerky, dried apples, hard cheese, and pebbly oat bread, not to mention several growlers of what Sylvain, via a sniff test and an overly generous sip that resulted in a loud cough, determined to be spiced cider. 

“Pretty strong, too,” he added, his eyes watering. 

Felix snorted. “Or you’re just soft.” He took a swig himself, and promptly turned red trying not to cough. 

“All right,” said Ingrid, taking the jug from him, “let’s put some food in our bellies before we get drunk off our asses.”

“Like you need an excuse to eat,” said Sylvain, already dodging the punch he knew was coming. 

But no amount of food could stop Ingrid, well into her third cup of cider, from turning to Felix as they sat on the floor around a trio of guttering candles and dirty plates, and saying, “May I comb your hair?”

Felix sputtered into his own cup, sloshing cider onto the floorboards. “What.” 

“It just looks a little… unkempt. I could comb it for you.” 

Felix shot a look at Sylvain—why did he do that?—and buried his face in his cup again. “No.”

“Aww, c’mon,” said Sylvain. “Let her. I miss the bun.” 

Ingrid wrinkled her nose. “The bun was dreadful!”

“No way, the bun was cute!” 

“All right, fine, it was cute.” Ingrid giggled. “Oh no.”

“What?” they both said. 

“I need more food.” She flopped down on the ground to reach the sack of jerky and pulled out another piece.

“Very ladylike,” Sylvain snickered. 

“Shut up.” 

Felix stood up abruptly. Swayed a little in the candlelight. “I’m going to sleep.” 

“Wait!” Sylvain caught his hand, switched his grip to his sleeve. “Ingrid’s gonna comb your hair.” 

Felix shook himself free. “I’m tired of listening to you two flirt.”

Ingrid’s jaw fell open, full mouth and all. Is that what they had been doing?

Sylvain merely laughed—no, giggled. “Then how about you join in?”

“Don’t mock me.”

“I’m not. I just…” 

He trailed off with a vague gesture, looked at his cup, and drained it. When he was done, he seemed surprised to see Ingrid and Felix still looking at him. “Do you think it’s possible to be in love with two people at once?”

“Oh please!” Ingrid rolled her eyes. “How many girls has that ever worked on?”

“Do you see a second girl here?” Sylvain snapped. 

Felix opened his mouth, then closed it. Made a derisive noise between his teeth. 

“Never mind,” Sylvain said, suddenly tired. “Felix… just let her comb your hair.”

And Felix, without another word, sat down on the floor in front of Ingrid, his back to her. And waited. 

With clumsy hands, Ingrid searched through her saddlebags, found the small polished-wood comb that she herself hadn’t used in weeks, and with numbed fingers, pulled out the string tying Felix’s hair into a messy knot at the back of his head. 

It was shorter than it had been in school, but still longer than her own chin-length cut now; it spilled down to his shoulders, lank and tangled. 

Ingrid could feel Sylvain’s eyes on her hands as she started to work through the knots. 

The quiet in their little cabin was so absolute that she could hear both of their breathing. When Sylvain spoke, it didn’t shock her, exactly, but it sent a thrill through her ribcage: “I wish you had a second comb.”

“Why is that?” she said. She sounded breathless, even to her own ears. Probably the effort of battling Felix’s knots. 

“So I could comb your hair while you comb Felix’s.” 

“That sounds nice,” she said, then frowned. She must be drunker than she thought. To save face, she added, “You could come over here and help me with his.” She blushed. How was that saving face, exactly? 

But Sylvain rose up on his knees and crawled around to her side, steadying himself on Felix’s shoulder as he leaned into her side. Goddess, he was tall. It was obvious even when he was on his knees. 

He took the comb from her. She didn’t remove her hands from Felix’s hair. The parts she had combed felt soft and brittle, like dried hay. Sylvain was clumsy with the comb.

“Have you ever used one of these before?” Felix said sarcastically. 

“Shut up! My hands are cold.” 

His hands were shaking, but when they brushed against Ingrid’s they felt warm. 

“Your hands are warm,” she said, dumbly. 

He looked at her. 

Felix stirred, made to get up. “Enough. You’re doing it again.” 

“Hey, wait,” said Sylvain, “I’m trying to comb _ your _hair.” He grabbed Felix’s shoulder. “Felix—”

“Comb hers instead. She’ll let you.” Felix twisted, punched him in the arm. Sylvain grunted, and his hand slid to Felix’s throat. 

Even the wind stopped. 

Sylvain’s fingers loosened around Felix’s neck, then tightened, just barely pressing into his skin. Beyond these four walls lurked the dead of Faerghus winter, but Ingrid felt warm, so warm, from the cider and the tiny cabin and the heat from Sylvain and Felix’s bodies. Sylvain’s thigh was shaking where it touched hers. He looked frozen, like a soldier in his first battle, just before the first blast of the war horn. 

Sylvain’s fingers loosened again. 

“Don’t be a coward,” Felix growled. 

And that was enough. 

Throwing one arm over Ingrid’s shoulders, his other hand still squeezing Felix’s neck, Sylvain bent down and kissed Felix on the mouth. 

Then, without releasing him, Sylvain broke the kiss and turned to kiss Ingrid as well. Clumsy, scared, fast; he tried to pull away, but Ingrid wound her fingers in his red tangles and held him there. Her eyes met Felix’s and the sight went straight into her like a sword in a sheath. She still had her other hand in his hair. 

Sylvain’s teeth nibbled at her lip before he let her go, let both of them go, rocked back on his heels. He bit his lip. “Well? Say something.”

“I—” Ingrid began. She fumbled. Looked at Felix. Hesitated. Steeled herself like a knight preparing to joust—

They both moved at once, and then Felix’s lips were on hers, rough and chapped and careful. He pulled back quickly. 

“Ingrid.” His voice was hoarse, hoarser than usual. “...I’m sorry.” 

She knew what he meant. 

“I’m sorry too.”

And she kissed him again. 

A warm weight crashed into her side. It was Sylvain, draping himself across both their shoulders. With a grunt Felix turned to kiss him and Ingrid gasped, relieved to have a moment to breathe, before Sylvain was back. His lips were fuller than Felix’s, still chapped but softer. She wondered what her own were like. She wanted Sylvain to hold her throat, too. She still hadn’t let go of Felix’s hair.

* * *

  
Ingrid can still smell the cider in this musty old cabin, even over the earth and the rot and the mouldering leaves. 

Or can she? Maybe she’s just imagining it. Maybe she was imagining all of it. 

She throws herself down onto the musty little bed. 

Either she’s losing her mind, or the mattress still smells like them.

* * *

That morning, she woke beneath a pile of blankets, pressed into Sylvain’s side, her cheek on his shoulder. He was already awake; she could just tell somehow from his breathing. Across from her, Felix had his back against Sylvain’s other side, his head tucked under Sylvain’s arm. 

The blankets shifted as she sat up. Felix stirred as the cold air hit him and groaned.

Sylvain grinned at the ceiling. “Finally.” 

Winter’s grip broke just a few days later. 

And then it was just two weeks until the five-year anniversary of the Blue Lions’ promise to reunite at Garreg Mach. They hadn’t been planning to go—with Byleth dead and Dimitri as he was, what was the point? But Dimitri’s trail had been winding toward the monastery for weeks now. It was looking more like they’d be there whether they meant to or not.

Ingrid brought it up one night as they lay together in a cave, this time with Felix at the center, naked and warm under their blankets. 

“Yeah, probably no one will show,” Sylvain said sadly. 

“We should go anyway, though,” said Ingrid. 

“Why?”

“Because we said we would.” 

Sylvain sighed. “Felix, help me.” 

But the lines around Felix’s eyes looked even deeper than usual as he said, “The boar might be there. If he’s even still human enough to remember.” 

Sylvain sighed. “Well, at least we’ll be able to fuck in the monastery. Hey! What’d I say? Ow!”

And that’s how they had arrived at Garreg Mach together. If the others knew something had changed between the three of them, no one said anything, though Ingrid once thought Mercedes had smiled knowingly at her. 

They all kept their own rooms at the monastery—sometimes Felix needed a den to skulk off to, as she put it—but more nights than not the three of them piled into a single bed. Nothing else felt safe anymore. Nothing else felt right. 

Ingrid wasn’t stupid. She knew it couldn’t last. Even when the war was won, she still had the burden of passing on the Crest of Daphnel hanging over her head. But she thought that Felix and Sylvain… she thought the three of them…

* * *

“I told you she’d be here.” 

“Aw, who’d have guessed our Ingrid was such a softie.” 

“I did.” 

“Yeah, yeah.” 

Ingrid jolts awake. She’s stiff, cold, her face puffy, her mouth dry--but none of that matters, because Sylvain and Felix are standing in the cabin, by the bedside. 

“Ingrid,” says Sylvain. 

Ingrid shakes her head. “I don’t want to discuss this any further.” She stands up, makes to walk past them. “I think you both made yourselves clear.”

“No, we didn’t.” Sylvain puts his hand on her shoulder. “Listen, don’t be mad—”

“‘Don’t be mad?’ Are you really—’”

“Ingrid,” Felix cuts in. His voice low. “Please.” 

It takes her by surprise, just long enough for Sylvain to seize the opening. 

“We don’t not want to marry you. We talked about it, and—you can marry either of us, whoever you want. I just thought… maybe you’d prefer Fraldarius. You know, where you were always supposed to be.” 

“And I thought…” Felix cuts his gaze to the side. “You know Sylvain needs constant supervision.” 

“Ouch.” 

Ingrid stares at them: Sylvain’s doe-eyes, Felix’s stubborn glare.

“Are you telling me that you each want the other to marry me...because you care about each other?”

“And you!” Sylvain says. “We care about you.”

Steady, soldier. Keep a tight hand on those reins. “I actually thought for a moment this was all just fooling around for you!”

“Ingrid, no!” Sylvain grabs her elbows, his big hands almost encircling her arms. “I love you. We love you.”

Felix is unmoved. “You should have had more faith in us.” 

“Oooh, you two are infuriating! This is what I was trying to say—if we play this right, we can all stay together!” 

“Really?” says Sylvain. He grabs Felix’s shoulder, his other hand still on her arm. “H-how?”

“What about your knightly marriage oaths?” Felix says. 

“What do you mean?”

“You said: if you got married, you’d only fuck your husband. And I assume you’d expect him to only fuck you.”

“You idiot, if it was me marrying one of you, we would obviously have the understanding that the marriage oath included all three of us.”

“The priest wouldn’t,” says Felix. 

“But we would. That wouldn’t be breaking the oath, that would _ be _the oath.” 

Sylvain lets out an aggrieved sigh. “Damn it, Ingrid, we thought you were saying that if you married one of us, our thing would be over!” 

“I never said that!”

“You kind of did!” 

Ingrid looks to Felix for support. 

“You did imply it,” Felix says, giving her nothing. 

“You didn’t give me a chance to explain!” Ingrid says. 

“You’re the one who stormed out,” says Sylvain. 

“Ugh, you two are…” She can’t finish the sentence. Her legs are shaking like a foal’s. “You two… were still willing to marry me? Even if it meant not being with each other?”

Sylvain shrugs, a bit sheepishly, “Well, I mean, I don’t know that it’s a promise I could’ve kept, but…”

"Sylvain," Felix says sharply.

"I would have tried! Really." He ruffles his hair, his eyes darting between them. "Whatever you want, Ingrid."

“You think you’re the one who looks after us,” Felix cuts in. “As if we don’t look after you too.” 

“Oh, Felix… Sylvain…” 

They converge on her before she can demand it of them: Sylvain wraps his arms around her and tucks her head under his chin, and Felix presses himself against her back, his arms around both of them. 

Wrapped up between the two of them, with all the strength and trust of comrades-in-arms and all the warmth and rush of lovers—this, only this, is how it should always be. The rightness of it takes her breath away. 

But the practicalities still aren’t done; the battle-plan still not complete. She clears her throat. 

“I think the thing to do is for me to marry Sylvain. That will mean a lot of traveling back and forth through Fraldarius territory. And Felix can come to Gautier on the pretext of fighting along the Sreng border, or to Galatea on the pretext of passing through on the way to Garreg Mach.” 

Relief breaks out on Sylvain’s face. “Ingrid, you’re a genius.” He tips her head up to kiss her, then cranes his neck over her shoulder to kiss Felix as well. 

When they break apart, Felix’s face is red. “Someone will see.” 

“Who cares!” Sylvain crows. “We’re getting married!” 

“You and Ingrid are getting married,” Felix says, without spite. 

Ingrid cranes her head around to kiss him; he leans his head forward against Sylvain’s cheek to give her easier access. 

“Yeah, but we could do our own thing after,” Sylvain says as they kiss, “we could have our own little ceremony or whatever.” Sylvain talks fast when he’s excited, starts to drop his Ts. It touches her heart every time, the delight of noticing small details about someone you love. “I bet Mercedes would officiate it too, she totally knows about us and she’s chill with it—”

Felix pulls his head back. “What.” His voice flat and annoyed, and that’s precious too, every grumpy syllable. She wants to kiss Sylvain while she listens to Felix complain about how no one can know he has feelings. 

But first… 

“You two,” she says to her fellow knights, her comrades-in-arms, her family. “Let’s go home.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Postscript: Their babies all have blond hair, and no Crests.


End file.
